REFLECTIONS
Fro m t h e
In s i d e O u t
It’s not possible for you to
change yourself, but it is pos-
sible for God to change you
by the miracle-working
power of His Spirit. He’ll do
things you can’t do!
This is what it means to be
“born again” in the Spirit and
“become a new creature in
Christ Jesus. Old things shall
pass away and all things shall
become new” (2 Corinthians
5:17). His coming into your
life not only renews and pu-
rifies and regenerates your
own spirit, but it also renews
your mind, breaking old con-
nections and reflexes, and
then gradually rebuilding it
and rewiring it into a whole
new system with a different
outlook on life and a new
way of looking at the world,
with new reactions to nearly
everything around you.
But it’s impossible for you
to make this change yourself.
If you want this change, it’s
necessary for you to ask
Jesus to come into your
heart. When Jesus comes
into your heart, everything is
changed—everything! You
are a new person, completely
different. But you don’t have
anything to do with it! All
you do is ask Him to come in.
It’s a miracle of God!
Some changes are instan-
taneous, others take awhile.
—But if you’ve received
Jesus as your Savior, you will
be changed, because Jesus
changes people!
— By David Brandt Berg
R47
A CHOICE
AND A CHANGE
T
he British scholar C.S. Lewis commented, “A
man who was merely a man and said the sort
of things Jesus said would not be a great moral
teacher.” A mere mortal claiming to be the Son of
God would not be taken seriously by others. He
would probably be ridiculed, put away in a mental
institution, or considered mentally challenged. Lewis
goes on to say that if Jesus were not the Son of God
as He claimed to be, “He would either be a lunatic—
on a level of a man who says he is a poached egg—or
else he would be the Devil of Hell.”
“You must make your choice. Either this man
was, and is, the Son of God, or else He is a madman
... or something worse. You can shut Him up for a
fool; you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon;
or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and
God.”
Many people who don’t believe Jesus was di-
vine nevertheless say they believe He was a great
man whose positive influence has reached over the
centuries and around the world. But as Lewis ex-
plains, God didn’t leave us the option of considering
Jesus simply a great man or a great teacher. God
wants you to believe in Jesus as your Savior, and
then to take Him into your heart and life. Why?
Because God wants to live with you, and in
you, in order to give you all the good things that He
has for you out of His limitless love. How does He do
that? In the Bible He says, “A new heart also will I
give you, and a new spirit will I put within you”
(Ezekiel 36:26). What years of psychoanalysis, self-
help methods, group therapy or even personal de-
termination can’t do, God can do in one instant, as
an answer to the prayer of a believing heart: He can
give you a new spirit. It’s the start on the road to a
new life.